


Gettin' Smile

by RushingHeadlong



Series: Smile Prompts [2]
Category: Queen (Band), Smile (Band)
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Smile (Band) Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:28:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28663947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RushingHeadlong/pseuds/RushingHeadlong
Summary: Tim has finally left 1984 and he’s ready to move onto the next thing.Now he just needs to convince Brian to start a new band with him.
Relationships: Brian May & Tim Staffell
Series: Smile Prompts [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2087487
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	Gettin' Smile

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt for “A fic that stops just before Tim and Brian meet Roger for the first time”. I used this as an excuse to explore Brian and Tim’s friendship and voices, so this is a pretty dialogue-heavy story.

“I left 1984,” Tim announces, in lieu of a proper greeting, when Brian finally opens the door.

Brian stands aside to let him into the flat. “Well, it took you long enough.”

“What do you mean, it took me long enough?” Tim demands.

“Shoes-”

“Off, yeah, yeah, I fucking know,” Tim says as he toes off his trainers and kicks them, maybe with a bit more force than is necessary, into the corner by the door. “Now answer my question, May. What do you _mean_ , it took me long enough?”

“I mean, you’ve spent months grumbling about the band stalling out without doing a damn thing about it,” Brian says. “You want a drink?”

“Yeah, a beer,” Tim says.

“No beer, but I’ll make you a cuppa.”

“What a fucking consolation prize,” Tim grumbles, with no real heat behind it. “And anyway, I’ll have you know that I stuck with 1984 all this time because of _you_.”

Brian, already halfway through filling up the kettle, turns to give Tim a confused look. “Did you forget that I left the band back in December?”

“No, but if I had left then too you wouldn’t have joined a new band with me right away,” Tim explains. “So I figured I might as well stay where I was until your exams were done and you graduated.”

“I’m still studying, though. Or did you forget that I’m doing a PhD now?” Brian asks. The kettle starts to run over and Brian jumps a little as the water spills over his hand. He quickly shuts off the tap, dries off the kettle, and sets it on the stove to heat up.

“Hard to forget when you won’t shut up about it,” Tim teases, and he laughs when Brian rolls his eyes at him as he turns back around. “Besides, doing a PhD is _completely_ different!”

“Yeah, it’s a lot harder.”

“Well alright, then!” Tim says with another laugh. “But the point still stands that you weren’t looking to join another band eight months ago.”

“And you think I’m looking for one now?” Brian asks.

“Looking? No,” Tim says. “But you’re getting antsy for it anyway.” He nods towards the opposite corner of Brian’s bedsit, where his guitar is sitting out, and he adds, “You’ve had that out every time I’ve come over for the last few months, you know.”

Brian glances over towards his guitar, then busies himself with pulling out cups for the tea. “Alright, so _maybe_ it’d be nice to play again, but do we really have the time to put together an entire band?”

“Sure we do,” Tim says, with all the confidence of someone with a dream and very few things that can distract him from that now.

“Tim, we have hardly anything we’d need for a band right now,” Brian says as the kettle starts to whistle. He quickly makes two cups of tea, and shoos Tim over to the couch.

“But we can still put one together!” Tim insists as he takes a seat and takes his cup from Brian. “I mean, between you and I we have most of a band figured out already!”

“Hmm,” Brian hums as he considers that. “I suppose you could sing again, since you did alright in 1984.”

“Excuse me, I did better than just “alright” in 1984!” Tim says with a small huff.

“You did,” Brian agrees, grinning widely at him. “And if you don’t mind my attempts at backing vocals, I suppose we have the start of something that could be good.”

“I was planning on asking you to sing so, yes, _please_ help with backing vocals,” Tim says, and Brian laughs.

“We’ll still need a third vocalist to help round things out,” Brian points out.

“We’ll just need to find a drummer who can also sing then,” Tim says. “Kill two birds with one stone.” He takes a sip of his tea, slurping it loudly and hiding his grin behind his cup when Brian scowls at him.

“Do you _have_ to do that?” Brian complains.

“What? It just helps cool it down a bit faster,” Tim says, all faux-innocence, because they both know that he’s really doing it because it irritates the shit out of Brian and he finds that a little bit funny.

“Sure it does,” Brian mutters, annoyed but in a fond sort of way, the sort of irritation that comes from knowing Tim for four years now and being painfully familiar with all of his personality quirks. “Did you want to talk about this hypothetical band of ours, or were you just going to be obnoxious?”

“What’s hypothetical about it?” Tim asks. “I thought we had everything figured out! You, me, a drummer we’ll audition for-”

“We still need a bassist too,” Brian points out.

“I can play bass,” Tim offers.

Brian gives him a slightly disbelieving look. “You can?” he asks, sounding skeptical.

“Of course I can!” Tim says. “I’ve played bass before, once or twice.”

“Once or twice,” Brian echoes, and there’s a faint teasing smile playing at the corner of his mouth once again, his annoyance at Tim already fading. “Right. Yeah, what could go wrong with that?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Tim says firmly. “Or if it does go wrong we can always just audition a bassist as well. And there’s a guy at Ealing, my friend Chris, who can play keyboards if we want a keyboardist as well.”

“A keyboardist might not be a bad idea,” Brian says, thoughtful. “But you’re still missing one thing.”

Tim frowns as he thinks of everything they’ve talked about so far. Brian’s on guitar and he’s singing and playing bass and they’ll hold auditions for a drummer and, sure, he still needs to ask Chris if he wants to join their band… but what is he missing?

“We need a name for our band,” Brian says, sparing Tim the struggle of trying to remember that himself.

“Oh, well, that’s just a minor detail,” Tim says with a wave of his hand - luckily, not the one holding his cup of tea, though god knows half the stains on Brian’s couch are probably from him anyway. “We’ll come up with something.”

“We could try “The Mind Boggles” again,” Brian jokes.

Tim snorts. “That didn’t work for us before; I don’t think it’s going to work now.”

“True,” Brian agrees. “Got any other ideas, then?”

“Nothing right now,” Tim says. “Though… Well, I put together some logo ideas for my graphics course. There’s bound to be something in there we can use and once we have that, it should be easy to pick a name from there.”

Brian shakes his head, but there’s an amused and fond sort of smile slowly growing on his face too. “You really thought of everything before coming over here, didn’t you?”

“Not quite everything,” Tim says. He slurps at his tea again, and Brian rolls his eyes but his smile doesn’t fade. “I didn’t write the audition ad for our future drummer yet.”

“Oh, well, if _that’s_ all you didn’t do…” Brian teases.

Tim laughs and the two fall silent, finishing their tea and mulling over the still-unanswered questions about their future band: the name, and what music they’ll perform, and how they’re going to find the perfect singer-slash-drummer to join them…

“I think I have the ad figured out,” Brian says after a few moments. Tim raises an eyebrow at him, silently asking him to go on, and Brian tells him, “New band looking for a Mitch Mitchell/Ginger Baker type drummer.”

“Isn’t that a bit reaching for the stars?” Tim asks.

Brian shrugs. “Maybe. But what’s the point of doing this if we aren’t striving for the best?”

Tim grins at him, bright and delighted. _This_ is why he only wanted to start a new band with Brian: because they both have the same ambition, and the same drive to take this as far as they can.

“Yeah, you know what? I think you’re onto something there,” Tim tells him. “Jot down that ad and let’s get it hung up. We have a band to put together.”


End file.
